Looking back at plaza plan

In response to the question “Where did Jacobs go wrong?” the article about donor response to the Plaza de Panama outcome [“Does park plan defeat mean fewer donations?,” Feb. 10] repeated the SOHO misrepresentation “Jacobs conceived the plan alone, appointed a committee of supporters and chose the consultants to develop the details.” This distorted image of the rich benefactor using his money to get his way has been the consistent cry from the opposition. But, this image is not based on the true facts.

The facts are that at a meeting convened by Mayor Sanders to discuss the future of the 2015 celebration which I attended and was attended by representatives of 2015, park institutions, many park support groups and city staff, Iris Strauss, the city’s appointed representative for 2015, told the mayor that there was “agreement” on a legacy project for 2015 and that was to remove the cars from the Plaza de Panama for the 2015 celebration. The mayor asked if everyone agreed and everyone said that they did. Armed with this information the mayor approached Dr. Jacobs, told him of this “agreement” and asked if he could help develop and support a plan to accomplish this objective by 2015. The mayor and Dr. Jacobs visited the park together. They went up in the California Tower and Dr. Jacobs discussed the potential solution of a bypass bridge to move the cars through the park and away from the Plaza de Panama. Dr. Jacobs, at the mayor’s request, hired consultants to develop a detailed plan to accomplish the agreed objectives. It was not Dr. Jacobs who came up with the necessity of getting the cars off the plaza, it was a group of citizen stakeholders in the park. It was not Dr. Jacobs that came up with the goal that the project be completed by 2015. This was the basis of the project that he was asked by the city to fund. And, it is obvious under these facts, that everyone was agreed that parking on the Plaza de Panama was NOT a reasonable beneficial use of that historic property. That same conclusion has been the basis of virtually every publicly convened initiative to discuss the future of the park for the last 20 years and has been the consistent and current position of SOHO, that raised a contrary view in court to secure a short-term victory and ended up encumbering the city with a legal opinion that we will live to regret.

The major donors whose reaction to Plaza de Panama we are concerned about know these facts. It is on the basis of these true facts that one needs to contemplate the extent to which donors will continue to support city projects. – Peter K. Ellsworth, Point Loma

In response to “A 50-year dream: City must keep Balboa Park plan alive” (Editorial, Feb. 10): The 24-year-old Balboa Park master plan has never been funded or implemented while Balboa Park’s deferred maintenance is estimated to be in excess of $250 million. The cost of this is an unmet responsibility of the city of San Diego. It requires fresh approaches and solutions. The Jacobs’ plan did just that by targeting the lack of parking for the park’s 14 million annual visitors. The parking issue has been studied for two decades without a funded or implemented solution.